I have been a fan of the league since it's existence. And this year was probably the best it has ever been organized. But the league scheduling format needs improvement. The way it is set up now allows weaker teams to pile up wins against even weaker competition.
The three best teams this year are the Rev, the Rebels and the Stealth. Ask anyone on those three teams if the Shock should not have made the playoffs. I think the response would have been absolutely not. Those teams delivered four losses to the Shock. I love to see the best teams play each other, so I did not mind that we saw season match-up between the four teams. But if you are going to have division teams play each other twice, then you need all division teams to play each other twice. If that were the case, the Sting would have at least two losses to the Stealth, and probably three if the Shock plays like they did in most of their other games.
The only reason the Stealth was a wildcard team was they had to play the Rev and the Rebels. If the Sting has the same schedule they are either the wildcard team or not even in the playoffs.
When a team is dominant all year against weak competition, then gets clocked by a good team in the playoffs, as what happened to the Sting, they will not react well. And as you can see the result was a play that culminated in a league MVP contender being ejected.
I understand that the league probably wanted to schedule easy games for expansion teams. But there is an inherent "unfairness" to this type of scheduling. Every team in the league should have played one of the big three at least one time. I know that is probably an impossibility with the limited scheduling, but either scrap the extra division game and schedule a non-division opponent, or have every team play a home-and-home against division opponents.
Summing up--if the league scrapped the extra division game format I believe that the Stealth win their division. Do the Shock make the playoffs? Probably not with their loss to the Sting. And lastly whoever loses the sole game between the Rev and Rebels then has to play both teams to win the championship. One thing the league did get right--we have a championship between the two best teams. I would have been satisfied with any two of the three, as I believe they are that close.
Wow! I stopped reading after your second paragraph, took 60 seconds to re read the "Hypothetical Schedule" thread that Jess Peterson took the time to post, and then came back to finish reading what I knew to be a garbage post. If you look at the aforementioned Hypothetical Schedule for 2015 you will see the Stealth will play the Sting twice next year and the Shock have a schedule to go 6-2 if they can't get past the Division Champs, Brigham Sting. We wanted a big AAA league because our AA was bigger and "other leagues were laughing at us" someone actually posted once. The Stealth, Rev, and Rebels were where they needed to bbe, the Shoock had a down year. I bet they are back in form next year. This "League Format" is not perfect, but it workse. Ill miss quote Pat Riley..."get a grip. stop changing everything, every year, and lets see what happens. you got the guts to do that?"
Haha Just finished reading your garbage post! "You hope format is changed next year." Yup. That's how the intelligent guys who run the show put it together in January. You're 6 months behind the curve.
I was hoping to sound unbiased--I am an RMFL fan. But when the whistle blows each Saturday I am rooting for the Rev. Just got mucho respect for the Stealth, Rebels and Shock. For those with a short memory, the Shock were season champions last year. I think the Stealth and Shock were both hurt by this years schedule. And slightly less hurt, the Rebels. Don't mean to be hating on the Sting, but does anyone really believe they were the best team in the Utah North? As for the hypothetical schedule, why are the top two teams from the Utah divisions playing each other? Is it due to the geography or the talent? Either way, you can replace the second division game scheduled with another non-division opponent to make the scheduling more fair.
-- Edited by ABCFootball on Saturday 28th of June 2014 01:29:29 PM
so it sounds like your agenda is not for the entire league but for the teams you root for. talk to the stealth gm or the rev gm and ask one of them why the league structure is the way it is. remember it was voted unanimously.
